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A giant fact about the HAMAS Gaza Flotilla continues to be kept quiet by the mainstream media:

Terrorists Adam Shapiro & Huwaida Arraf Led, Organized Gaza Flotilla

Adam Shapiro and Huwaida Arraf–the leaders of the “Free Gaza Movment” and the organizers of the HAMAS Gaza flotilla–and their organization harbored several Islamic terrorists and homicide bombers, including those who blew up a Tel Aviv Bar. They founded and head up the International Solidarity Movement (ISM).

In April, 2003, Shapiro and Arraf’s group, ISM, brought two Pakistani British Muslim terrorists into Gaza from Jordan under the guise of a fake travel and tours company. The men, Asif Muhammad Hanif and Omar Khan Sharif, spent the night with ISM and the next day at ISM’s Gaza office. Then, they blew up Mike’s Bar in Tel Aviv. Three Israelis were murdered and fifty were wounded in the attack. Although a few Islamic terrorist groups, including Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, claimed responsibility, the two terrorists were involved with Al-Qaeda. Some sources believe that their martyrdom videos may have been shot by ISM or at ISM’s offices. Shapiro, Arraf, and their ISM should have been prosecuted and put in prison for life at the very least for harboring the men who perpetrated the attacks, but nothing happened to them.

Nothing also happened to them when a month earlier, in March 2003, they harbored Shadi Sukiya, in ISM’s Jenin office in the so-called West Bank, along with two Kalashnikov rifles. Sukiya was involved in several thwarted suicide attacks, including a planned suicide bus bombing in northern Israel in September 2002, another suicide attack in October 2002, and a planned suicide attack with an explosive suitcase in February 2003. And he was involved in planting explosive devices and shooting attacks against IDF troops and Jewish communities in the Jenin area. Adam Shapiro and his organization helped hide this murderer and then defended those actions.

These are the people Adam Shapiro and Huwaida Arraf helped in their efforts to murder as many innocent civilians as possible. It’s the same type of people they brought over on the “peace” flotilla from Turkey.

And, sadly, the U.S. refuses to put these two on the no-fly list or prosecute them for harboring, aiding, and abetting Islamic terrorists in mass murder. In fact, on Tuesday, Arraf was the subject of a disgusting, gushing interview by Paul W. Smith, the pan-Islamist, half-Lebanese host of WJR, the Detroit Rush Limbaugh affiliate. (Smith was previously a guest host for Limbaugh on several occasions.)

I’ve written about these two–Shapiro and Arraf–since 2002, when they were engaged to be married (they have since tied the knot), and all of the western media–including FOX News Channel–was describing them as peace activists. As I noted then, in my column, “Jewish by Birth, Terrorist by Choice,” they are anything but. Here are some excerpts:

On January 29th, Shapiro and his Palestinian American fiancee, Huwaida Arraf of Roseville, Michigan, praised suicide bombers’ missions and “martyrdom” in the Palestine Chronicle. “This is no less of a jihad. This is no less noble than carrying out a suicide operation. And we are certain that if these men were killed during such an action [DS: homicide bombings], they would be considered shaheed Allah [martyrdom].”

In the same article, Shapiro and Arraf wrote of their support for armed struggle. “The Palestinian resistance must take on a variety of characteristics, both nonviolent and violent. But most importantly it must develop a strategy involving both aspects . . . . Let us reiterate, we accept that Palestinians have a right to resist with arms.” . . .

Adam and fiancee Arraf urged an armed struggle, they also praised “India militants” who attacked “while Gandhi conducted his campaign” and the violent cop-killer “Black Panther Movement” that “existed side-by-side with the Civil Rights Movement in the United States.”. . .

ISM’s views and activities, which can be seen at palsolidarity.org, are the epitome of violence, including, “We recognize the Palestinian right to resist Israeli violence and occupation via armed struggle.”

And that’s not to mention that Shapiro and Arraf hung out with Yasser Arafat and defended the Taliban. Sound like “peace activists” to you?

After writing the column, Adam’s crazy brother, New York lawyer Noah Shapiro, stalked me with harassing phone calls and threatened to sue me for daring to expose his brother’s predilection for violence. There’s a reason Adam Shapiro was named the Guerrilla News Network’s “Guerrilla of the Week” in April 2002.

Arraf, a Christian Arab from the Detroit suburb of Roseville, majored in Hebrew at the University of Michigan. But she took Hebrew only to further her cause of helping Islamic terrorists against Israel. Shapiro was a counselor and top official for “Seeds of Peace,” the Islamic-Jewish moral equivalency summer camp in New England, the alumni of which include many Islamic terrorists.

As I frequently tell people, not all Christian Arabs are the good guys. In fact, many are not, as they have chosen–a la Huwaida Arraf–to be the water-carriers and warrior-dhimmis for Islam and its terrorists. But, if tomorrow, they took over, Arraf would be the first one they’d slaughter.

In 2002, a number of Islamic terrorists involved in homicide bombings and slaughter of American and Israeli civilians and soldiers hid in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Adam Shapiro’s and Huwaida Arraf’s group helped them. When the terrorists left and were, unfortunately, given safe passage to and freedom in Cyprus, they left behind a lot of garbage in the church, including used condoms.

I wondered if Ms. Arraf and her ISM followers gave the terrorists the opportunity to use the condoms.

Either way, this woman and her equally sleazy husband have figuratively “serviced” Islamic terrorists for almost a decade. And that includes the HAMAS Gaza flotilla.

If Gaza flotilla organizers Adam Shapiro and Huwaida Arraf are so “peaceful,” why did they give shelter to Islamic terrorists who blew innocent people up?

And why on earth would Israel give them free and easy passage into Gaza? They may hold American passports, but they are terrorists plain and simple. Or, in Barack Obama lexicon, terrorist “community organizers.”

There are two kinds of blockades: belligerent blockades and pacific blockade. A belligerent blockade is legal when you have an international armed conflict (IAC). Since Gaza and/or Hamas is not a state and Israel itself says the conflict is not internationalized by involvement of another state, nor is it occupying Gaza (which would give it the right to blockade), this is not an IAC and not a legal blockade under those terms.

According to Heller, a blockade is not legal in the case of a non-international armed conflict (NIAC). Later in his post and comments, the issue of the American Civil War is raised and Lincoln’s use of a blockade against the Confederate States. Heller’s assessment is that declaring the blockade was a de facto recognition of the CSA as a belligerent. If Israel is “recognizing” Hamas as a belligerent, that would mean they would have to treat Hamas fighters as privileged combatants, just like the armed forces of any state, which would entitle Hamas fighters to attack Israeli combatants. It would also require Israel to treat captured Hamas fighters as POWs and, presumably, require them to follow the Geneva Convention codes.

The other legal instance of a blockade is a pacific blockade, but those are only for use against a state and have to be approved by the Security Council. Neither condition applies to this blockade, so it isn’t a pacific blockade.

Heller’s analysis is interesting, as are the many comments on his analysis, though I confess some of them go over my head or address point of law that I don’t know much about.

So having summarized that, I’ll address some of your points.

Points 1-3. I stipulate to your summary of the history of the conflict, but disagree with how you use the term “belligerent.” Yes, obviously in the common usage of the term Hamas is belligerent to Israel to say the least. But as I pointed out above, an official, legal recognition of Hamas as a belligerent entity also carries other conditions. Israel has not legally recognized Hamas as a belligerent (probably because of those conditions), and so has deprived itself of the right to blockade Gaza in an armed international conflict. I also disagree with your statement that some people are “unworthy of democracy.”

Point 4. I absolutely agree with you. Please keep in mind, *I* am not the one who said it was not a blockade– it came from PM Netanyahu’s office. You and I agree that it obviously *is* a blockade. This goes to my point that the Israeli government keeps making conflicting and mutually exclusive statements about the nature of its conflict with Hamas.

Regarding the 2007 declaration of Hamas as a “hostile entity”… I don’t know if that phase is legally synonymous with “belligerent.” If it is, then presumably it would carry all of the same conditions as a declaration of belligerency that I mentioned above. It is interesting, though, that the Netanyahu government’s claim that it is *not* blockading Gaza comes *after* the “hostile entity” declaration you mentioned. Again, this back and forth: the Israeli government declares a state of conflict that (I assume) also gives it the right to blockade, but then denies that it is blockading, and then says it has the right to defend the blockade, which it said it wasn’t doing anyway.

Point 5. Granted. No argument.

Point 6. No argument about Egypt. I won’t automatically concede that the motivation of the flotilla was to aid Hamas. I will concede that embarrassing Israel was very much intended.

Point 7. The reference to Heller that I provided is a good starting place. Unless someone is spouting blatant anti-Semetic statements or self-identifying as a “leftist anti-Semite” I’m not sure how I would reasonably determine that without doing some extensive research into their writings and personal history. I don’t think questioning or disagreeing with the government of Israel automatically makes you a leftist or an anti-Semite. Do you? If so, then we have a significant point of disagreement.

Point 8. Again, I don’t think disagreeing with the Israeli gov’t makes one an anti-Semite or Jew-hater. I don’t know how you prove that the vast majority of its critics are anti-Semetic. I certainly don’t have the time or inclination to research them all. Personally, I oppose all who advocate racism or bigotry as a form of policy.

Your final point. An interesting statement on your part. It appears you are saying that if I say I am not an anti-Semite or a Jew-hater, or defend myself against such charges, I must therefore be one. Is that your intent? If you’ve ever denied that your are a racist does that automatically prove that you are one? As for “splitting hairs” and “twisting the legal issue” to fit my preconceptions, I’m going to have to, well, split hairs I guess.

First of all, I think it’s the law that’s pretty twisted. I’m not a lawyer, but I think the twist and turns of laws and legal arguments are fascinating. In this case, there are quite a few ambiguities and gaps that make the analysis interesting. There are many things I do not know or understand about the law, but it appears that there are enough ambiguities and gaps that even the experts are uncertain about how it applies to this event. So I don’t think *I’m* twisting the law. I’m trying, sincerely, to understand it.

As for “splitting sematic hairs”: *I’m* not the one making conflicting statements about Israel’s conflict with Hamas or about its blockade of Gaza. That is the Israeli government doing that.

As for my preconceptions? My preconception is that everything the Israeli government is *not automatically* legally or morally justified. I do recognize that Israel is engaged in an existential struggle. But I will not automatically concede that everything it does is morally or legally justified. If I were engaged in a life-or-death struggle to protect my family, I would do *whatever* I could to protect them, but that does not change whether those actions were legally justified or morally justified or not.

Forgive me, and please correct me if I am wrong, but you seem to think that anything the Israeli government does *is* automatically justified. The idea that any government is automatically justified in its actions seems to me to be a more dangerous preconception than mine, for it means that the government can act free of any accountability or responsibility. The preconception that Israel’s automatically has that justification seems to be widely held here. Would you grant that privilege to the United States government? I would say, take a step back– who would honestly want to live under a government that had no accountability for its actions?

Tom in Michigan, thanks very much for respectful and well articulated discussion. I see a lot of passion on this blog, but also a lot of venom and nastiness. Thanks for being a gentleman.

Clark,
Not sure why you miss what is so basic? Hamas exists to seek the extermination of Israel, and an Israeli state. When they came to power, they began a more openly ruthless form of tyranny to this end (vs. the snakier Fatah–like like Nobel prize winner, AIDS filled homo Arafat–or write my Master’s thesis “there was no Holocaust” Abbas style tyranny). Hamas just starts killing and breaking legs–and sending rockets and bombs.

The blockade is legal, the UN report on the first flotila states the blockade on Gaza is legal!!! and that Israel acted and has the right to protect itself within the provision of international law , I rest my case.

Clark refuses to understand that “blockade” has two meanings: one, the legal, two, the conventional. There is no “blockade” in the conventional sense because Israel allows non-military “aid” to pass. Thus, in the conventional sense, the Fakestinians are not being blockaded, which is what Bibi was obviously referring to. In the legal sense, though, there is indeed a blockade, as ships are not allowed to pass without being intervened first. I don’t understand what is so “inconsistent” here.

As for the nonsense about the (legal) blockade being illegal because Hamas is a non-state actor (Clark’s interpretation of Heller’s argument), Clark draws the wrong conclusion. State actors have protections that non-state actors do not. If we say that Hamas-Gaza is not a state, it does not follow that it has MORE protection from the law; rather it does not have any such protection.

Finally, despite Clark’s claim that he is not a lawyer, I have only rarely encountered a non-lawyer using “stipulate” in the way Clark does.

Taken together, I expect that Clark is indeed a lawyer, that he is pro-Muslim (a.k.a. pro-Nazi), and that he has been treated far too well by others here. As Buckley pointed out, there was no point in him debating a Communist because Communists always lie.

UNResolution 242 NOVEMBER 22, 1967
..For guaranteeing freedom of navigation through international waterways in the area; For achieving a just settlement of the refugee problem…

..nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine… -Arthur James Balfour Nov. 2nd 1917 letter to British Foreign Office

A small cut from the Balfour Declaration of 1917

In conclusion, the Court considers that Israel cannot rely on a right of self-defence or on a state of necessity in order to preclude the wrongfulness of the construction of the wall. The Court accordingly finds that the construction of the wall and its associated régime are contrary to international law.
-International Court of Justice in the Hague
Press Release 2004/28

That photo of Huwaida Arraf is surely Photoshopped to make her appear unsightly. Either Debbie Schlussel’s site did it — which would tell us a lot about the type of cheap tactics deployed here — or another unconditional supporter of Israel did the Photoshopping and this site picked it from an ally.

Nice way to make a subtle ad hominem attack on your declared enemies. Fits in with the tone of all too much right wing political attacks.

Arab leader Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi told the Peel Commission in 1937: “There is no such country as ‘Palestine'; ‘Palestine’ is a term the Zionists invented!”
In 1946, Arab historian Philip Hitti testified before the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry that “there is no such thing as Palestine in history.”
In 1947, Arab leaders protesting the UN partition plan argued that Palestine was part of Syria and “politically, the Arabs of Palestine (were) not (an) independent separate … political entity.”
An executive committee member of the PLO Zahir Muhsein confirmed that there is no such thing as a separate “palestinian” people of Arab descent. In an interview with the Dutch newspaper Trouw in March 31, 1977, he stated the following:
“The palestinian people do not exist. The creation of a palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity.
In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct “palestinian people” to oppose Zionism.”
Who “palestinians” are: a gang of genetic thieves who stole ethnicity, history, land, and natural resources; murderers who killed thousands of Americans, Europeans, and Israelis; and pathological liars. They have close ties to Hitler, Nazi and SS; invented and implemented ethnic cleansing for thousands of years and Holocaust in 1920s-30s-40s.
“Palestinians” have no place in human society, that is why no muslim country would like to have them.
Who abbas is: a fake president of the fake and never existed country and for fake-ethnicity people; genetic thief, pathological liar and murderer; KGB puppet; Nazi and SS descendent; Holocaust denier.
Total extermination of Fatah, PLO, Hamas, IJ, abbas. and relocation all Palestinian thugs to their native countries is a key to peace on ME.